Few would be immune right now from the economic impacts the war on Iran is having on petrol prices on top of rising mortgage rates.
However, many people believe we are just at the beginning of the crisis and the flow on effects are only just starting to take effect.
Tamborine Mountain residents are reevaluating their lifestyle and making changes – some big, some small.
I’ve been saying for years that my family should be growing the majority of our food, and this crisis has finally motivated me to make the time to start clearing the weeds from the vegetable garden.
So, in between the extra time out of my day it will take me to swap the car for my legs to get my child to school, I hope to spend time in the garden saving money.
Arna Presland said she was already thinking about the long-term implications of the war.
“I’m worried,” she said about the economic impacts.
Despite only recently servicing her car and buying new tyres, Arna decided it was a smart move to buy a hybrid now.
“I had a compact diesel SUV and with the cost of diesel and I’m hearing about diesel rationing I brought forward my plans to get a hybrid, which I’d planned on doing in 2028,” she said.
“The Southport dealer said there had been a run of enquiries on the car and people were lined up to buy it. He is trying to buy more wholesale, but they have gone up 10 -15 per cent.”
“I had to get this in case fuel rationing comes into play because I need to be able to drive for work and didn’t want to use diesel when it needs to go to essential services like trucking and agriculture.”
Arna has also contacted the Tamborine Mountain State Primary School to encourage them to coordinate additional walk to school days.
“We will probably have to ration our every trip and non-essential travel will need to be limited. With the Easter holidays coming up I don’t know if our family will be able to afford to go away.”
Arna said her cleaner, who comes up from Coomera, has said she can no longer afford to clean on the mountain because she can’t afford the fuel – leaving many of her vulnerable NDIS and aged clients without that service.
She said the support workers for her son, who has ASD level three, are being mindful of the amount of driving they are doing with him which will limit his access to community support.
“I hope if things do get tough the mountain community will band together and come up with ways to help each other,” Arna said.
Jane Sagi is also conscious of the current uncertainty and how long it could go on for.
“I used to go off the mountain to get food, now I will look at going down every second or third week,” she said.
“I’m not panic buying but just getting a few extra things each time to have in reserve just in case. And I can buy a few fresh things up here.”
She said she’s making sure if she does have to drive off the mountain that she does everything she needs in the one trip and tops up her fuel while there too.
Jane has found that ensuring the fuel tank doesn’t drop below three quarters full means it doesn’t feel like so much of an outlay when she has to fill up.
“We are not going out for a full meal, but instead just a glass of wine and a bowl of chips, so we are still supporting local businesses,” she said.
She is also going to start growing vegetables and plans on getting chickens to have an egg supply.
Diane Garland, who runs the food pantry at the Presbyterian Church, said people are definitely concerned.
“They are not wanting the Coles and Aldi vouchers because they can’t afford to go off the mountain to shop,” she said, adding that the number of items being donated has also dropped.
They were getting bread from Brumbies one day a week and Woolworths twice a week, but they have had to stop going to Brumbies and cut their trips to Woolworths down to one day because of the cost of petrol, which means they will have less to offer locals in need.
Vice President of the Tamborine Mountain Chamber of Commerce, Dwayne Chanter, said there was definitely concern among the businesses. While he had not felt any effects, yet he felt the Easter break would be the telling time.
He encouraged people to shop local.
“You can buy almost everything on the mountain,” Dwayne said.
IGA store manager Karen Boyd said they had increased their orders substantially to meet the panic buying from locals.
She said they were wiped out of flour and sugar recently and people were stocking up on dry goods and tinned food as well as buying bulk meat.
Karen said they had also had an increase in people shopping locally as it was economically more viable than driving to the coast.
The good news is she said so far there were no supply issues and prices were not yet being impacted.
Logan Coaches assistant general manager Trevor Howell said while they were managing to absorb the higher fuel prices for now, it has put pressure on the overall cost of delivering school transport services.
Scenic Rim Regional Council CEO David Keenan said the council had taken measures to ensure services such as rubbish collection would not be affected but would continue to monitor the situation and work with suppliers.
He said fuel suppliers had confirmed council would receive their normal diesel allocation as a priority and they had secured six months’ supply of ad blue, which reduces emissions.
“There has been no impact on council’s parks and landscape maintenance operations at this stage,” Mr Keenan said.
“Where possible staff are encouraged to work at locations closer to home. Office based staff may be approved to work from home if their home office meets council’s WHS standards.”
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